Memory
by StarfireRocks
Summary: Started off as an attempt at a character study of Reid, but then morphed into something else. Basically, Reid's point of view on his mind and then Morgan and JJ learn something about Reid from Garcia - and maybe something about the team in general. . .


**Um. . . I dunno what happened with this one shot. It started out as a kind of character study of Reid, but then. . . I dunno. Garcia insisted on actually saying something and who was I to resist?**

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything recognizable, but I DO own a very strong desire to not be sued. . .**

**Oh, just a warning, this starts out in Reid's point of view, and then changes to. . . is it called third-person? That kind of thing always confuses me. . . ugh. You get the point. **

My - admittedly - long winded lecture is abruptly cut off with a simple roll of the eyes and a not-so-subtle cough. My mouth snaps shut and my cheeks flush a pinkish hue as I slide down further into my seat. Morgan smirks, his eyes twinkling, before turning back to the others.

It's one of our rare days off, and - even rarer - a day we decided to gather at Rossi's home, him declaring it, 'family bonding time'. I had been dubious at this declaration, but Morgan had forced my hand into coming. After discovering that the others had made special preparations to allow them to come, I hadn't offered much more resistance.

JJ hadn't needed to do much, as it turned out. Will had been the one to urge her into coming, assuring her he was fine with staying with Henry for the evening. As for Hotch, Jessica was more than willing to spend an extra few hours with her nephew, despite having looked after him for the past six days while the team was in Pittsburgh on a case.

So, with Morgan and Blake agreeing to the idea, the details had been ironed out and I was forced into attending the social gathering.

I, for one, don't really understand the need to get together with the people you see everyday at work - but then again, most of the social etiquette and cues are lost on me at the best of times. For the most part I just try to go along with such things, so as not to appear as ignorant as I sometimes feel.

I fight the urge to pitch back into the conversation when Blake brings up - for some reason or other, I wasn't really paying attention - how she had once tried gardening, only for it all to wither and die within weeks.

As soon as the words leave her mouth and make their way to my ears, where they vibrate along until they're able to be sent as signals to my brain, every piece of knowledge I know about gardening, crops, and the statistics of flourishing plants in Virginia instantly comes to my mind. I have to clamp down on the lengthy ramble making its way up my throat, trying to spill out through my sealed lips.

JJ raises an eyebrow and sends a strange look my way, a smile dancing on the corner of her lips as if she knows how hard I'm struggling to keep my words in.

It's not that I _want _to have the almost undeniable urge to talk until my throat is almost as sore as the surrounding peoples' ears. I just can't _help_ it. It's how my mind works.

Every time I come across an unknown piece of information; a new fact, strange statistics or translations for another language; my brain drinks it in and refuses to let go. Every new fact seems to weigh more heavily in my head, and usually I'm able to push the somewhat odd sensation to the back of my mind. But as soon as someone brings up something that has to do with one of the many bits of information clinging to my brain, it offers as a sort of relief to voice them.

If I speak aloud the facts constantly picking at my brain - reminding me of their presence - then it's as if the pressure of that fact is relieved. It no longer bugs me, and I'm once again able to think properly. I often trip over my words in my haste to get them out - to free up at least a _part _of my brain.

Coffee dulls it. The facts never go away - how can they? I have an eidetic memory - but it makes the pressure and unease more bearable. Unfortunately, my teammates don't really appreciate the fact that I spout off random statistics - for no apparent reason.

It's hard, but I _am _able to resist the _majority _of instances where I itch to speak my knowledge. A few slip by at work, but that usually only happens when I grow desperate and can't control it anymore.

When someone speaks and leaves an opening - no matter how small or reluctant - that can be filled with useless knowledge and/or facts that _I know_ - which happens _a lot_ - my surroundings seem to disappear.

The world will grow dark around me, clouding my view of the room and my team as I sink into the recesses of my mind. Their words will still make their way to me, but they'll be far off and faint. However, their words - as long as I know _something _about what they're talking about - will bring up pictures and words, anything in my knowledge that can be connected with what they're saying.

It gets infuriating.

So, despite what Morgan and the others believe, I can't simply shut off my brain and _take a break_, as Morgan has suggested many a time. I would love to be able to go a day without facts springing to mind, making socializing difficult and awkward.

Of course, my brain and memory aren't the only factors in my non-existent conversation skills. But they certainly don't help things.

Which is one of the reasons I was reluctant to come tonight.

It's meant to be an evening of relaxation after a long, tough case. A time for unwinding among friends. And for them, it is. For me? Not so much. My version of unwinding would be either reading - to supress my irritating need to release the facts stored in my brain - or having a willing audience that will listen to my endless statistics and facts without complaint because they know it makes me feel _oh so much _better. Instead I'm sitting at the end of one of Rossi's expensive couches, nursing a _large _cup of coffee to curb the need to voice my knowledge, watching the others laugh and lighten the burden upon their shoulders in a way that I'm not able.

And you know what? It's worth it.

It's worth the discomfort and feeling of my head being too crowded, just to see JJ and Garcia giggle at Morgan, who poses for them while Blake snaps a picture, with Rossi encouraging them and Hotch trying - and failing _miserably _- to look disapproving.

So when Morgan looks back over at me and starts ribbing me for drinking so much sugar-laden coffee, I just smile back at him benignly and reply mildly that I need all the help I can get if I must put up with his and Garcia's flirting all evening.

* * *

Morgan's staring at Reid. He's not even _trying _to hide it. He's just outright _staring_. He doesn't even blink. Just stares at him with a furrowed brow and intense eyes. It's quite unnerving to see, but Reid hardly seems to notice. He's in one of his _Reid Trances_ - as Morgan dubbed it.

Reid's staring at the wall blankly, eyes wide and glazed over. His mouth is parted slightly, waiting for the coffee that's in his hand, frozen halfway up to its destination. His body is completely still, the only movement being his chest as he breathes.

"Ever wonder what it's like to think that hard?" JJ asks mildly as she sits on the end of Morgan's old desk and joins him in watching Reid. Morgan hums and inclines his head to show he heard her, but doesn't take his eyes from Reid.

"Hey, what're you guys doing down here?" Garcia says in surprise as she comes up to them with a stack of files. "You do you know you both have your own offices, right?"

JJ turns to her and smiles, indicating Morgan. "I just came down here to see if Reid and Morgan wanted me to get them anything for lunch, but Reid's in one of his trances and Morgan seems determined to study him until he snaps out of it. So I thought I'd join him."

Garcia flits her gaze to Reid and raises her eyebrows before walking over to his desk and plopping the files on top of the paper he had been working on before he zoned out. Garcia doesn't even try to talk to him; she gives him a smile and ruffles his hair and returns to JJ and Morgan. Reid shows no reaction.

Morgan finally breaks his gaze away from Reid. "What, not even gonna _try _and wake him up? That's not like you, Babygirl."

Garcia gave him a _look_. "You don't have a clue what he's actually doing, do you?"

Morgan blinks at her. "What do you mean? He's just spaced out. It's not like he hasn't done it before."

Garcia sighs and rolls her eyes, leaning against the desk next to JJ.

"Remember when Boy Wonder was shot while protecting that Dr. Barton? He had to spend a couple cases in my office with me because he couldn't fly and _certainly _couldn't do field work with those crutches?"

Morgan and JJ nod carefully and Garcia continues.

"Well, he zoned out on me a few times. The first time, I kinda freaked out. I couldn't snap him out of it for _ages._ When I finally did, I demanded he tell me what had happened."

"Okay. . . " Morgan drawls. "And?"

"Do you know what an eidetic memory _is_?"

Morgan looks surprised. "Well, yeah. It's like a photographic memory."

Garcia shakes her head. "It's more than that, my chocolate adonis. With a photographic memory, people remember things they _see_. With an _eidetic _memory, people remember things they see, touch, smell, hear, and taste - without wanting to. Without any conscious direction, their brains store away this information. It can get very overwhelming. So sometimes, when the information gets too much, our little genius' brain just sort of. . . shuts down. It prevents useless memories and information from being stored away in that giant brain of his. Of course his brain doesn't _really _shut down, otherwise he'd be dead. But Reid has found a way to stop his brain from collecting information he doesn't need. And to do that. . . "

"He zones out," JJ finishes, catching on. "Ohhh. . . ."

Garcia nods. "Exactly. So you two better leave him alone! He'll come out of it when he's ready. But it'll be when _he _chooses to, you hear me?"

They both nod.

Morgan's able to restrain himself for about another ten seconds. "How long is that gonna take, exactly? I mean, he's already been like this for twenty minutes. I'm sure his coffee's gone cold by now."

"Then why didn't you get him a new one!" Garcia explains, sounding scandalised. "Honestly, haven't you known him long enough to be able to do these things for him?"

With that, she straightens and makes her way to the coffee machine, preparing a fresh cup for Reid.

"Hey!" Morgan protests. "No fair, Babygirl. Whenever we go on cases and he's too busy thinking to walk straight I lead him to the table and make sure he doesn't hurt himself; I also refill his coffee for him when he's a minute away from cracking a case. What else do you _want_?"

Garcia stalks over, momentarily pausing to pry the cold coffee from Reid's grasp and replace it with the fresh cup, and smacks Morgan on the arm.

"When he snaps out of it, he's not going to realize that I replaced his coffee. And I'm not going to tell him. Neither are you two. I didn't do it because I want Reid to _know _that I did it, I did it because his coffee was cold and he needed a new one. That's what families _do._ And _we_, my clueless stud muffin, are family."

Garcia spins on her heels and disappears down the hall to her lair, leaving JJ and Morgan gaping after her.

They slowly turn back to Reid just in time to see him jump in his seat a little and peer around in confusion. He blinks rapidly to focus his vision and turns back to his desk, shrugging. He pauses for a second when he sees the new files there, but takes a sip of his coffee and begins to work on them, as if he hadn't just been spaced out for the past half hour. His fingers tighten on his coffee cup as if savoring the warmth and he studiously ignores the amazed stares he is getting from two of his team members across the room.

So JJ and Morgan let him, Garcia's words still humming around in their heads as they get back to work, seemingly having forgotten about lunch.

From his office, peering down on them, Aaron Hotchner smiles.

**Um. . . yeah. Kinda two different things in one, huh? Eh, whatever. That last line kinda creeps me out, like Hotch is creepy I-Watch-You-And-You-Don't-Know-It kinda guy. Haha.**

**That whole comparing photographic memory to eidetic memory is actually really funny to me. Just cuz I have a SORT of photographic memory - meaning I remember pretty much everything I read months after I read it and can recite it word for word - and my friend can remember stuff he's heard, seen, smelt and felt weeks afterwards and he CALLS it an eidetic memory. Neither of us have proven out memory powers, but we argue about them ALL the time. He says eidetic memories are really annoying. . . Considering both photographic and eidetic memories are quite rare, it's odd that we both live on the same street. . . Hey! Maybe our town experimented on us when we were kids and that's why we have these memory thingies! **

**Anyway, please review! I looooooove reviews. . . . I also like favorites! No point in follows. There is no continuation. BUT you could review. . . ?**


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